A few nights ago we did our first night snorkel and saw a plethora of new life. Ariana, Kristina, Jaden, and I started the night snorkel around 8 PM and didn’t end up getting out until after 10 PM. None of us had realized how long we were actually in the water and were surprised to find out we had been in the water for over two hours. When we first started the snorkel, we headed straight for the mangroves to try to get a view of the beach accessible from the boardwalk path. On the way to this point, we saw most of the usual stuff we see during the day including a couple of different types if urchins and sea cucumbers. One thing that we saw a lot of that we didn’t see during the day were these worms on the bottom. The worms were very active and even moved back if you got close. As we continued through the mangroves, we saw a Sea Hare which was a nice surprise, being that Brad had told us they hadn’t seen one all trip and they used to be everywhere.

Picture of a Sea Hare sitting on a rock in the mangroves.

During the day I haven’t seen many Caribbean Spiny Lobsters, except the ones caged in on one of my dives, but on this night snorkel there were lobsters in almost every nook and cranny we looked in. We even ended up seeing a giant one that had to be at least a foot long right as we ended the snorkel. There were also a lot of Yellow Stingrays swimming and sitting on the bottom allowing me to get really good close up shots.

Picture of the eye of a Yellow Stingray.

The highlight of the snorkel was catching a glimpse of a Spotted Eagle Ray that swam past. I was able to get on the side of the ray and get some of my best Eagle Ray shots. The night snorkel showed us new and old reef life in a unique way that was much quieter than the reef during the day.

Picture of a Spotted Eagle Ray.

-Julia